kfw

A HUGE thank you to Jack and koshka!

Yes, thanks a lot folks!

Koshka, when I took Farrell's class a few years ago many of the participants had clearly had some ballet training. I had had very little, but we all had fun.

Great question, Bart. Whoever actually used that phrase, you'll remember from the Duberman book Kirstein in 1932 telling Frances Flynn Paine, with whom he dreamed up several artistic endeavours they never brought to fruition together, including a ballet, . . .. you'll remember him telling her that "first and foremost" from their work together he wanted a ballet school.

kfw--sometimes do try the venerable Lenox Lounge at Lenox between 124th and 125th, because they have a wonderful soul food restaurant, the Zebra Room, and always good players, even if not necessarily as famous as the Vanguard. Always take a cab, of course, as there is some drug traffic around there--but once you get in there, it takes you back to the old days, or as old as you can get now: since Small's Paradise closed in 1988, none of the Golden Age clubs are still there in their same housing, e.g., The Cotton Club. The Showman's is also oldish, but I don't think it's quite as mellow and elegant as the Lenox. The Vanguard and the Blue Note are always good, of course, and both just down the street from me.

Thanks for the tip, papeetepatrick. By happy accident I stopped in there one afternoon a few years ago; I think it was before they started booking groups again. Yes, it's a beautifully preserved or renovated place and that put me in mind of the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in Chicago and of a Jacob Lawrence print I have in my study, Cafe Comedian. And of course Minton's Playhouse, to which I've made pilgrimages on several occasions, is open again too.

Another place I enjoyed, for its liveliness and its food, that seemed appropriate after NYCB, was Russian Samovar on 52nd street.

P.J. Clarke's just opened in that very spot. I haven't looked at the menu,* but it could turn out to be a slightly more upscale version of its late, lamented predecessor.

Oh, that looks like it may be a real solution, and that will mean there are maybe 4 places where you can even get good draft Guinness. This is more practical--than Iridium and a whole jazz club-- for the purpose O'Neal's used to serve; and it doesn't need to be too elegant, maybe the emphasis should be on brash and somewhat rushed and occasional touches of classic New York Rudeness! In this case, pedestrian food is not desirable, but that's mostly what we got at O'Neal's, and that's not why anybody went there.

I loved it when Iridium was there, because when I'm in town I always head to a jazz club afterwards, usually the Village Vanguard, but elsewhere depending on who's playing. Gray's Papaya, another important stop, comes after the club. I'm sorry O'Neals is gone because of the mural, but the only reason.

After Kennedy Center matinee performances, the KC Cafe has sweeping views of the city, and the lounge and bar in the Watergate Hotel have a lovely posh atmosphere, pleasant staff and, last but almost not least, good free nuts.

I think Macaulay was brave and did his job, which is to represent the concerns of the audience -- and the audience has not forgotten that Ms Kistler lodged charges against her husband years ago any more than the public has forgotten that Balanchine fired Farrell, then took her back. This is common knowledge, and it's germane.

I agree that it's germane, Paul. But -- someone correct me if I'm mistaken -- I don't believe Kistler ever filed charges. Or if she did, she dropped them almost immediately.

Since the system upgrade I have to log in every morning. I can get on the site the rest of the day with no problems. Is anyone else having this problem?

Yes. Me.

. . . one thing I'll say is that the Times seems to have found a new chief dance critic worth one's reading and one's respect.

You can say that again! After beautifully describing how different dancers bring different qualities to their Romeos even in the opening steps, Macaulay writes

If you don’t love dance, it must sound daft that an off-kilter quality here, an upward glance there can make you see the touch of the poet that any true Romeo should have. But if you do, you know how such moments can open up meanings, revealing artistry and art itself.

Good dance writing gives me the shivers. Or to put it another way and play with a phrase, sometimes a few well-chosen words are as good as a picture. As someone who doesn't get to New York more than once or twice a year, it's such a pleasure to read a writer who can help me imagine what's happening onstage.

Eva Kistrup discusses this in her Letter from Copenhagen in the latest DanceViewTimes

Hübbe . . . has only choreographed snippets, like a piece for the opening of a new Danish railway line

This made me laugh out loud, imagining such a thing in the US of A. The Danes do love their ballet, I guess. Lucky Danes.

Promotion of diversity, handled intelligently, would serve the art form, and such promotion doesn’t have to involve any lowering of standards.

Thank you for saying in a single sentence what I attempted to do in a whole paragraph.

Yes, of course you're right, that was very well put: diversity will serve the art form in the long term by, in a nutshell, significantly enhancing the talent pool. It's just a question in the short term of how we get there: by not lowering standards for the sake of diversity. Old Fashioned, thank you for clarifying what you meant earlier.

. . . . being colorblind can be to a fault. If directors do not have the initiative to improve racial diversity within a company, then they could be acting under the auspicious title of "colorblindness" because race is a non-issue for them. I’ve seen this sort of mono-culturalism occur before in organizations that pride themselves on indifference to race, color, or origin, and this happens because it discourages active diversity within.

I would think that color blindness would be exactly the right approach for any director trying to serve the art form, and their function should be to serve the art form, not to promote diversity. It's wonderful that directors are trying to reach out to people who have traditionally lacked access and exposure to ballet, but in my opinion lack of diversity is only a problem when non-white dancers are treated differently that white dancers. Unless the pool of minority dancers is exceptionally full of talent vis-a-vis the larger white pool, diversity for diversity's sake will only lower the quality of what's onstage.

On a side note, Ballet Talkers within driving distance of Richmond can enjoy the talents of Richmond Ballet dancers Maggie Small and Michael Forrest-Johnson.

I think I've been to all the vodka occasions over the decades, but after the Stravinsky Festival of 1972. when Mr. B and Lincoln cavorted before the curtain and Mr. B invited us to have a hooker on the way out, I can't for the life of me remember what the others were about. Any other geezers out there who remember? It was nice of the Ballet Master in Chief to introduce all the little Ballet Masters last night because except to hard core fans, they are not instantly recognizable. There have been many more glamorous gatherings on the NY State Theater Stage, but glamor isn't everything.

The last time NYCB was on Live from Lincoln Center, for the celebration of Balanchine's 100th Birthday, if memory serves, they showed film of the Stravinsky Celebration toast, and then Martins and Kevin Kline followed suit. Didn't Martins and Kirstein also toast at the televised celebration in '93?

This week is dedicated to Lincoln Kirstein, and at orchestra level, there are photos of his townhouse in case that's of interest.

I wonder if the photos are from the book "Quarry: A Collection in Lieu of Memoirs of Lincoln Kirstein."

The Spring 2007 issue of Dance View is now out. Happiness is being a subscriber and finding the following articles in one's mailbox:

"Essentials: NYCB's Winter Season," by Mary Cargill.

"The Classy Ms. Nichols Packs Them in the Wings and Prepares to Exit with a Bang," by Marilyn Hunt.

"A Conversation with Christopher Stowell," by Martha Ullman West.

"A Dance with Madness," 'the Paintings and Drawings of Vaslav Nijinsky," by Michael Popkin.

"Performance Counts: The 2006-2007 Season: Don Quixote and a mixed bill at Miami City Ballet," by Carol Pardo.

as well as New York, London, and San Francisco reports by, respectively, Gay Morris, Jane Simpson and Rita Felciano.

Dance View is the print sister of danceview times, both of which are published by Ballet Talk founder, Alexandra Tomalonis. Subscrptions are available here.

When one of the marketing points of a production is that the kids are going to be prominently featured, it immediately lowers the audience's expectations of professionalism and content of the production, which in Martins' R&J may be intentional. Also, using a bunch of kids has a way of deflecting criticism. It might be an all around lousy production, but who is going to bash a bunch of kids?

Professional critics are going to differentiate between the production and the current abilities of the cast, and if the semi-professional leads fall short, we'll all know who ticket holders have to blame.

That's quite alright, Paul, and thanks for the information. I always learn from your posts. I should have made clear as well that Brown feels these distortions are inadequate, superficial responses to the contemporary music to which they were set. She writes: "I wonder what his considerations were when he choreographed to the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Ives, Xenakis, beyond the obvious idiosyncracies of the sounds and the irregular rhythms?"

Paul, thank you for your comments. It's still not clear to me why an appreciation of the Cecchetti style should preclude appreciation of Balanchine as well. It's not like someone was mixing them. In any case, "complaints" wasn't the best choice of words, but I was hardly denigrating her disagreements. Yes, she's smart, real smart. That's one reason I posted.

I'm interested in what Brown has to say about Balanchine on pages 50-1. For a modern dancer to have taken sides against ballet choreography in general would not have surprised me, as from what I understand the two camps often disapproved of each other. So I'm not so surprised that she's angered by Balanchine claiming that ballet is Woman while more often, as she sees it, portraying women in his dances as "girls, nymphettes, high-prancing fillies."

More surprising is that while she admires Ashton and Tudor as "the most musical of choreographers," moving "through, over around and against, as well as with their music," she finds Balanchine "to be dealing mostly in musical surfaces, occasionally coming uncomfortably close to the Mickey Mouse-Fantasia aesthetic." I know others have faulted him for glibly dilineating musical structure, but as far as I know that's a rarely held opinion today.

Brown also takes aim at some of Balanchine's neo-classic inversions such as "flexed wrists and splayed fingers, flexed foot and thrust pelvis, pirouettes on bent knees and daisy chain contortionist acrobatics, or Tin-Pan Alley, girlie-show kitsch from Old Broadway to signify 'This is Modern!'" She also says that his use of space was mostly conventional.

The last complaint might be expected from someone steeped in the Cage-Cunningham aesthetic. I suppose that this aesthetic, where gender roles are rare, where dance and music complement each other only arbitrarily, and where any and every movement is seemingly equal in fascination to any other, goes a long way in explaining all her complaints.

Bart and ViolinConcerto, thanks so much to you both for the news. The book will be out in a week! I've been doling out Carolyn Brown's memoir in small dessert portions to myself after more difficult reading. But Kirstein is one of my favorite historical personages, and with a long awaited bio of the guy finally set to arrive, I'm going to start eating more dessert.

In his book "Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition," Wendell Berry quotes Ezra Pound saying something about literature that surely holds for art in general and for great dances and great dancers: “A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions . . . It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.” Berry quotes further: “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.” Berry then writes that “the business of literature . . . is to renew not only itself but also our sense of the perennial newness of the world and of our experience; it is to renew our sense of the newness of what is eternally new.”

Although Berry is talking about literature -- about the art form itself -- being renewed, I would think this must apply to great performers approaching familiar material as well: that it’s because the work is perennially new to them that they can make it new and “alive” to us. They're able to penetrate deeper to the heart of the material (and in that limited sense to reality) than other performers, and than the rest of us -- to see and understand more than the rest of us -- and that’s an essential part of what they give to us.

I agree with dirac. I'm not bothered by Garis' ego, I'm thrilled to hop into the time machine and watch and contemplate "the Balanchine Enterprise" with an observer so thoughtful, sensitive, musically knowledgeable and emotionally involved with what he's experiencing.

For example, from pages 77-8 of the original hardback: "And so at the end, Apollo and the muses did not mount to Parnassus but instead moved around a stage which now represented no illusioned space. This makes a tremendous difference. When Apollo and the muses leave, they leave us behind in our mortality. This is what the music seems to say in its reiterated cry of lamentation dying away at the end, and it is what the old version of the ballet used to say, simply and effectively, as the four immortals waited motionlessly on the staircase for their chariot."

Agree or disagree with his opinion, but that's good writing.

I'll take either one over the folks who have loud conversations about anything and everything before the ballet and then again during intermissions.

Well, loud/profane/etc. is not really ever good, but who cares what others are talking about before curtain and at intermission? I mean, yes, it's lovely if your neighbors bring you into a performance-related discussion, but when I attend the ballet with friends (or see friends there), we often use the intermissions, etc. to catch up on all manner of news--travel, kids, work, ballet class... Why this should concern anyone else is beyond me.

The key word is "loud," and it's precisely because personal things don't concern anyone else and mundane things probably don't interest anyone else that I wish more people would discuss them in the lobby and not in their seats where the people around them have no choice but to hear them, and where some of us are in a this-is-a-very-special-occasion frame of mind. You are probably thoughtful and respectful of the people around you, so we can probably at least agree that the problems we're all complaining about occur because people think that whatever they do in the theater should be of no concern to anyone else.

For what it's worth, I'm a fidgeter by nature, and it takes all my self-control in the theater sometimes to sit still and not bug the guy in back of me.

Speaking just for myself, the writing seemed rather flat, monchromatic and impersonal -- though admirably clear and easy to follow. She is one of those writers who discusses feelings and even passions in the same voice that she uses to discuss thoughts and ideas. This is perhaps not the ideal approach when writing a personal memoir. There are some fascinating stories here, and some interesting glimpses of Balanchine at work and at rest, but they are told by someone who is not a natural story-teller.

I wasn't going to say that, but I'm glad you did, Bart. Still, as you say, the book has many wonderful anecdotes and much food for thought -- and an index. It's a treasure I'll return to often.

In regards to Orpheus, turning to Nancy Reynolds' "Repertory in Review" for the names of still living dancers who were in the ballet in Balanchine's day, I find Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, Edward Villella, Arthur Mitchell, Kay Mazzo, Violette Verdy, and Allegra Kent. I wonder who staged the NYCB performance Fisher saw, and I wonder who is staging it this year. Is it too much to hope for a serious revival, or at least, for the time being, a Balanchine Foundation taping?

I actually prefer the living dead to those who think every time a dancer leaves the floor, balances on pointe for more than one count or adds a triple revolution is a historic event warranting ear-shattering bravos.

I'll take either one over the folks who have loud conversations about anything and everything before the ballet and then again during intermissions. Maybe these people have had season's subscriptions since they were kids. Maybe they just have too much money and too few inner resources and have come for nothing more than entertainment. But I'm there to see the ballet, and to savor about it, and to my mind public conversation about other matters is like wearing jeans to a church wedding -- it fails to honor the occasion.

The old Met was like the old 18th century, with rich and poor, elite and masses, living fairly pretty much on top of one another. Lincoln Center is much more Napoleonic in concept: a temple to high culture that is cut off from everything else, creating grand vistas from which one can view the rest of the world in safety and comfort. It's a kind of "Fortress Art."

That's a fascinating comparison, Bart. I know they displaced residents of an interesting, and if I'm not mistaken, lower and middle income neighborhood to build Lincoln Center, but the center was built before we even had the word "yuppie." In the not quite 20 years I've been going there I've seen the main thoroughfares undergo further gentrification and become less interesting, but I had the impression that the area was much more diverse in the early 60's.

If I'm not mistaken, the photo shows the moment when the muses have discovered the joy of movement. Soon Apollo will be swinging two of them through the air on his arms. Grinning seems an appropriate reaction. I will admit that out of context the photo looks a little odd.

Thanks, FF. I agree that joy is appropriate, even glee. But you may agree that the discovery of movement is profound; to call it fun is to trivialize it. Borree and Bouder look to me like they're suppressing giggles.